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AbstractWe appraise the effects of institutional quality on public spending for a set of 27 European countries and 18 Euro‐area economies over the 1996–2017 period. While institutions play a weak role in affecting spending once the fixed‐effects model is employed, the application of the quantile regression indicates that improved institutional quality mitigates public spending, although the effects crucially depend on the distribution of public expenditure and the sample examined. For both the Euro‐area sample and the full sample, we show that better quality of institutions reduces public spending, although the effects become less significant the higher the levels of public spending. Further, for the Euro‐area sample, institutions appear to have a stronger role in mitigating public spending. Several robustness tests confirm our findings.

PurposeUsing data for a set of 32 Sub-Saharan countries over the years 2000, 2005 and 2010, the paper investigates the effects of domestic governmental stability upon emigration and assesses whether education and gender shape the relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts instrumental variable (IV) Poisson regressions and two-stage least squares (2SLS) as robustness tests.FindingsThe paper suggests that increased governmental stability has a larger impact on the emigration of high-skilled individuals. Nevertheless, once emigrants are partitioned according to both education and gender, the authors find evidence of a larger impact of stability on the emigration of highly educated females.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical findings may lack generalizability because of the chosen research approach. Then, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.Practical implicationsThe paper includes implications that can be drawn for both the growth and the development of Sub-Saharan Africa.Originality/valueThis paper fulfills an identified need to study how both education and gender shape the relationship between domestic governmental stability and emigration.

AbstractUsing regional Italian data over the 2004–2011 period, we embed, within the framework of a double‐bootstrap Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), both knowledge and institutional spillovers to appraise how the latter affect Regional Innovation System (RIS) efficiency and further investigate how the quality of institutions interacts with RIS efficiency. Our evidence suggests that both knowledge and institutional spillovers enhance RIS efficiency. We find evidence of spillovers of control of corruption, government effectiveness, voice and accountability and regulatory quality, though these results crucially depend on the set of inputs employed. Once the two types of spillovers enter jointly, rather than separately, our specifications, the evidence indicates that both these spillovers positively affect RIS efficiency and their impact is quantitatively comparable. There is also some evidence of a positive effect of regional institutional quality on RIS efficiency, although the result is mediated by increased government effectiveness. In terms of policy implications, the evidence reported in this paper suggests that measures aimed at favouring cooperation among firms, that facilitate an easier imitation strategy and that improve governance are highly recommendable.

AbstractIn this study, we use a conventional Probit model to investigate the effects of banks' cost efficiency on innovation in Italy. In particular, we assess whether the efficiency–innovation relation depends on the type of banking institutions, as we partition them according to whether they are cooperatives or non‐cooperatives. When we examine the two types of financial intermediaries simultaneously, the higher efficiency among cooperative banks has a positive and significant effect on R&D collaborations with firms and consultants and process innovation, while higher efficiency among non‐cooperative banks has a positive and significant effect on product innovation. When we consider each individually, the effect holds for cooperatives, but the opposite holds for non‐cooperatives, as the positive and significant effect on product innovation vanishes. To deal with the likely endogeneity of bank efficiency, we also propose the application of an Instrumental Variable Probit (IV Probit) model. When we again jointly examine cooperative and non‐cooperative banks, our evidence indicates that higher efficiency among non‐cooperative banks enhances in‐house R&D and both product and process innovations, while we find a non‐significant effect for cooperative banks. However, when we individually examine the efficiency of each intermediary, we find evidence of a positive and significant effect on the process innovation for cooperative banks and of a positive relation between non‐cooperative banks' efficiency, in‐house R&D and product and process innovations.

This paper analyses the Beveridge Curve across twelve European countries from 1985 to 2013. We employ some novel measures of employment protection legislation and unemployment benefits, and assess the role of globalisation. Structural relationships seem to be stable throughout the 2008-2013 period, suggesting that the Great Recession mainly implied moves along the Curve, while stronger globalisation shifts the Curve outwards. Among institutional variables we find a significant role for the tax wedge, active labour-market policies, union density and employment protection legislation. Unemployment benefits also matter. The unemployment-vacancies trade-off is improved by a higher net retention rate and more strictness in the benefit provision protocol. Both effects can be rationalised in terms of higher search efficiency. ; Questo lavoro analizza la Curva di Beveridge in dodici paesi europei dal 1985 al 2013, avvalendosi di alcuni nuovi indicatori di legislazione per la protezione dell'impiego e sussidi di disoccupazione, e valutando il ruolo della globalizzazione. Le relazioni stimate risultano stabili all'inclusione del periodo 2008-2013, il che suggerisce che la Grande Recessione abbia principalmente implicato movimenti lungo la Curva. Una più elevata globalizzazione sposta invece la Curva verso l'esterno. Tra le variabili istituzionali si trova un ruolo significativo per il cuneo fiscale, le politiche attive del mercato del lavoro, il tasso di sindacalizzazione e la legislazione per la protezione dell'impiego. I sussidi di disoccupazione hanno pure un ruolo importante. Il trade-off disoccupazione - posti vacanti è migliorato da un net retention ratio più alto e da maggiore severità nel protocollo di somministrazione dei sussidi. Entrambi questi effetti possono essere spiegati in termini di una maggiore efficienza nella ricerca del lavoro.

Using regional data for Italy over the 2004–2019 period, this paper investigates the relationship between government effectiveness and inequality. For our empirical purposes, ordinary least squares, instrumental variable (IV) and generalized methods of moments regressions have been employed. Our evidence indicates that improved government effectiveness has some role in reducing inequality in the most developed regions of the North, but has no effect in both the Centre and in the peripheral Southern regions.

AbstractUsing regional data for Italy over the 2004–2019 period, this paper investigates the relationship between government effectiveness and inequality. For our empirical purposes, ordinary least squares, instrumental variable (IV) and generalized methods of moments regressions have been employed. Our evidence indicates that improved government effectiveness has some role in reducing inequality in the most developed regions of the North, but has no effect in both the Centre and in the peripheral Southern regions.